Canadian Folk icon Gordon Lightfoot appears in a scene in Lightheaded: A Gordon Lightfoot State of Mind.Supplied
- Lightheaded: A Gordon Lightfoot State of Mind
- Written and Directed by Baylee Kahlon and Brady Corcoran
- Starring Gordon Lightfoot, John Corcoran, Rick Haynes, Barry Keane, Mike Heffernan
- Classification G; 74 minutes
- Streaming on Prime Video
In a new documentary about the fanhood of Gordon Lightfoot, a question is posed as to what makes someone so intensely emotional over a musician that they follow that artist to 50 states and multiple continents over the course of decades.
We expect an answer from John Corcoran, who is not only the executive producer of Lightheaded: A Gordon Lightfoot State of Mind (now streaming on Prime Video) but an ebullient onscreen presence who has seen Lightfoot perform in concert hundreds of times.
Why is he such a fan? The guy never really explains.
Thankfully, in a small film that is earnest and enjoyable but not always articulate, others speak to the infatuation with Lightfoot better than Corcoran, who also happens to be the father of Baylee Kahlon and Brady Corcoran, the brother-and-sister, first-time filmmakers behind the doc. It is a small world.
The family gets great access as they tag along with Lightfoot’s tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland in the summer of 2016. They speak with Lightfoot devotees – “Lightheads” they are apparently called and members of Lightfoot’s band. The celebrated Canadian folkie himself was interviewed at his Toronto home. (He died in May, at age 84, after the film was completed.)
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Asked about his fans, Lightfoot says they are “loyal.” (Well, by definition.)
The film’s most powerful moment relates to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a song about a ferocious Lake Superior storm in 1975 that sank a freighter and took 29 crew members down with it. One mariner recalls hearing the epic tune for the first time while driving and pulling off the road, looking at the car radio awestruck. Citing the line, “Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours,” Captain Jeff Idema of the Great Lakes Maritime Academy says the lyric is “as powerful as you can get in this business.”
In the shipping people’s business and in the songwriting business both.
Gordon Lightfoot points out pictures in a scene from Lightheaded.Supplied
Michigan’s Richard Brauer, whose brother drowned in the Great Lakes, says this: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the tragedy of the loss of life, yeah, that’s all real. And when I lose my real brother to the Great Lakes … that makes songs like that even more poignant for me.”
Lightfoot’s reaction to those stories is strong and simple, saying songs such as The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald became a “very large responsibility.”
The rookie filmmakers also have a very large responsibility. Occasionally they drop the ball: A quote is heard twice; a story about Joni Mitchell in Detroit in the 1960s is accompanied by a photo of Lightfoot and Bob Dylan in Toronto in 1975; a blogger’s review of a Lightfoot concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall is misidentified as being about a concert in Bristol.
These are unforced errors in a film that correctly paints Lightfoot as a perfectionist.
If Lightheaded is not perfect, it is perfectly acceptable as a warmly told story about kinship forged by shared musical tastes. Fans of other iconic Canadian artists have received such treatment, in Andy Keen’s The Tragically Hip in Bobcaygeon (2012) and in Dale Heslip’s Rush: Time Stand Still (2016). Now it is time to shine a light on the Lightheads, who should not be confused with Deadheads (fans of the Grateful Dead) and Parrot Heads (Jimmy Buffett enthusiasts).
Lightfoot says he thinks his followers understand what he is singing. One female Lighthead says their hero troubadour finds a way to sing his heart in a way that sings for their hearts. The film’s soundtrack includes Plans of My Own, in which Lightfoot declares, “‘Cause I would travel anywhere, to be right where you are.”
Same to you, say the Lightheads.